Access To Media Impacting Children's Health, Attitudes Toward Sex And Violence

June 3, 2009 8:12 a.m. EST

David Goodhue - AHN Reporter

New York, NY (AHN) - The more violence a child watches on television, listens about in music or sees on video games increases the chances the child will be negatively influenced later in life.

One of the major conclusions Dr. Victor Strasburger of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine found in his comparison of access to media and negative children's health issues is that media violence may be associated with more than 10 percent of real-life violence.

His commentary was made at a Journal of the American Medical Association press briefing in New York this week. American children spend an average of more than six hours in front of the television, a computer screen, playing video games and watching movies. This is more time than they are receiving formal classroom instruction, and they are paying for it with their health, Strasburger said.

Violence was one of several health aspects Strasburger said is impacted by children's access to the variety of media available to them today.

He said witnessing smoking scenes in movies may be the leading factor associated with young people starting to smoke. Strasburg also said that children are heavily influenced by cigarette, alcohol and prescription drug commercials.

Strasburg also criticized the conflicting messages entertainment media is sending children about sex. While major networks balk at showing advertising for contraception, they air unprecedented amounts of sexual situations and innuendos during primetime television shows.

Access to media is also blamed for the prevalence of eating disorders among young people, Strasburger said. He cited a study from Fiji that suggested eating disorders increased dramatically in that country with the introduction of American television programs.

Likewise, television and video game habits are also making the world's kids fatter because they replace physical activity.

Strasburg said legislation should be passed banning all cigarette advertising and limiting alcohol advertising to only show the product. But he also said parents have a responsibility to limit access to media to their children.

"Parents have to change the way their children access the media - not permitting TV sets or Internet connections in the child's bedroom, limiting entertainment screen time to less than two hours per day and co-viewing with their children and adolescents. Research has shown that media effects are magnified significantly when there is a TV set in the child's or adolescent's bedroom," he said in a statement.

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